Having benefited from inheritance provided by my grandparents as well as dividends and stocks from my family's paper company, I was moved to do something extraordinary for others. Since so much of my wealth is not earned, I have tried to see it as a community resource as well as my own possession.

I grew up in Upstate New York and my family spent two years in Kenya when I was seven. When I was in college I learned that I would soon become a stockholder and beneficiary of our family owned paper company. My involvement in campus activism soon transformed the Christian ideals of my upbringing into a passionate progressive analysis about the role of capitalism in promoting racism, economic inequality and war.

In my twenties, I attended and helped lead Haymarket People's Funds conferences for people with inherited wealth where I met many inspiring friends who were giving away large amounts of principal – not just some of their dividends. For many years I was able to give away as much as I was living on, about half a million dollars in the last twenty years. Some years I gave away twice my income.

In the early nineties I gave $100,000 to the African National Congress to help them elect members who would help write the new South African Constitution. Even as apartheid was being dismantled I knew the freedom movement would still need ongoing financial support.

I have also enthusiastically supported the national activist training work of Training For Change in Philadelphia. As a volunteer for non-profit groups, I saw that proper training significantly enhances the effectiveness of organizing and activism.

I am a freelance artist and teacher, living comfortably but not extravagantly. Giving large donations has not affected my lifestyle or retirement security. I still struggle for clarity in my gifting, brought on partly by the isolation of not taking enough opportunities to talk about it.

I know I have given more than lots of people and less than some. But the world's need is so great and pressing. It is important to keep asking myself the question, "Can I do more?"